


sociopathy /ˈsoʊsiəˌpæθi/

by ryoflame



Category: Terror in Resonance, Zankyou no Terror, 残響のテロル | Zankyou no Terror | Terror in Resonance
Genre: Drabble Collection, Drabbles, Gen, Other, Platonic Relationships, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Shorts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 22:51:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 20,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2000988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryoflame/pseuds/ryoflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles for Zankyou no Terror/Terror in Resonance, focused mainly around Nine and Twelve and how completely dysfunctional they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. While You Were Sleeping

**Author's Note:**

> I can't stop thinking about these boys. Whenever I get a new headcanon or we're fed a bit more information for me to work with I'll probably spit out another drabble. They'll get added on as individual 'chapters'. Enjoy!

Sometimes Twelve wakes up in the middle of the night, disturbed by sounds from the bottom bunk; Nine tossing and turning, his breaths uneven and occasionally punctuated by soft, distressed sounds. Twelve will lay there and listen, occasionally picking words out from the unintelligible noises, words like ‘run’ and ‘please’.

More often than not, the other will awaken himself, startled out of his sleep to find himself tangled in his sheets with sweat-soaked hair clinging to his face, and Twelve will hear the shudder of one more deep breath before Nine once again gets himself under control.

Sometimes, Nine remains trapped in the nightmare and he begins to call for the ones they left behind… and when that happens, Twelve slips down from the top bunk to perch at the other boy’s side.

Nine is stoicism and cold calculation. He’s frost and steel and determination in an image of pale skin and empty eyes and Twelve can barely believe that the person squirming in bed and the person he knows during the day are one and the same; when the eyes are closed and the handsome features twisted in a mask of despair he looks like some bizarre caricature. Twelve reaches out to touch him with both hands, fingers pressing lightly to the sleeping boy’s cheeks before sliding up over his temples and forehead.

He smooths out the lines. He’s careful, wondering how much he can do without waking the other, as his fingers ghost just barely over the creased forehead and play into the short, dark hair. Nine shivers and stills and Twelve feels a spark of accomplishment. He likes puzzles. He’s good at puzzles, and Nine is one of the most complex. Sometimes he gives jibes and comments just to make a prediction on how Nine will react and congratulating himself whenever he’s right.

Nine is his brother. His equal, his acquaintance, his rival. His friend. Twelve rolls the word friend around in his mind for a moment. He knows what it means to be friends, in the dictionary sense of the word. He and Nine are friends; he knows that they are because friends help one another.

Sometimes Nine is so intent on his work that he forgets to eat, and Twelve brings him back food from the convenience store. Nine might be annoyed by the amount of times Twelve texts him, but he always comes when Twelve asks him to. Sometimes they sit in silence for hours on end in the same room, each doing their own thing, but it’s comfortable and there’s no need for constant chatter.

Twelve hums softly as he brushes sweaty strands of hair from Nine’s forehead and his fingers skim through the length of it. So soft… His fingers are calloused from the constant use of tools, the piecing together of gadgetry, he isn’t used to such soft things, not anymore. He brushes them through Nine’s hair again and realises the other boy’s breathing has settled somewhat and his brow is no longer wrinkled.

He wonders if actions affect dreams. He wonders if the inferno no doubt running through Nine’s mind is playing out the same as usual, or if perhaps the little boy who grew up into young man before him is feeling the touch of fingers in his hair instead of the burning embers alighting on his skin as the cold wire of the chain-link fence cuts into small, fragile hands. Hands that are still soft with innocence.

He makes a mental note to ask when Nine wakes up later.


	2. Inside the Ant Farm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twelve doesn't understand why what he did was Wrong. Twelve understands the concept of life and death just fine, but he doesn't think it matters as much as everyone seems to make out.

‘Why did you do that, Twelve?’

The little boy pouts and stands in front of the Teacher, his hands clasped behind his back and his gaze pointed at his toes. He doesn’t understand why he appears to be in trouble, and he feels a lump rise in his throat which he quickly swallows down.

‘Twelve? Look at me, please.’

He shuffles his feet and raises his gaze long enough to meet the stern gaze of the man in front of him. He doesn’t understand.

‘We gave you the ant farm because you did so well on your tests, Twelve. You were doing so well looking after it, too. You had a whole little world in your care, so why did you do that?’

Twelve looks down at his feet again, his lips pressed tightly together. He is trying his best to piece together an answer that would please the adult, to the best of his ability, but he just doesn’t understand why the man is asking what he’s asking. After all, isn’t the answer obvious?

‘I wanted to see what would happen.’ He says sullenly. It’s the truth, after all.

Twelve is good at puzzles, and he aces all his tests. It’s not that the other children at the institution don’t, it’s just he completes them fast and without complaint or question. Nine is nearly as good as him but they had decided to reward Twelve alone, had placed the tall, narrow plastic container in front of him and had explained he would be responsible for growing his own little ant colony. That it was a reward as much as a whole other test.

Twelve had been fascinated by the ants and had diligently watched them develop and multiply, had watched them build tunnels through the sand and scurry up and down along them. Sometimes he sprinkled breadcrumbs into the top of the container to watch the little soldiers march up to collect them.

This morning, two weeks after receiving his gift, he had poured a glass of water into the tank an watched as the ants’ hard work and tiny little lives were washed away.

Quite reasonably, he’d thought, he had gone to one of the adults to ask for a new ant farm, and now there he is being scolded for reasons he can’t understand.

The Teacher is impatient with him, Twelve can tell that much but he doesn’t know how to do anything about it. They’ve always been taught to solve problems and learn on their own and when Twelve had looked at the glass of water he had with his lunch, when he wanted to answer the question of whether or not the water would run neatly down the tunnels or simply wash it all away he had thought of really only one way of testing it.

The man crouches in front of him to be at eye level with the little boy. ‘Twelve, what did you feel when you poured the water over the ants?’

Twelve’s pout deepens; he doesn’t know the correct answer to this question and that bothers him. Hesitantly he does something he hates; he guesses. ‘Sad…?’

The man frowns slightly and Twelve feels the sting of failure. ‘It’s not a wrong or right answer, you just have to tell me the truth.’

Chewing his lip unhappily, he tries again. ‘I don’t know.’ The words are like poison on his tongue. ‘I wanted to know what would happen with the water.’

‘Did you think about how the ants might feel about it?’

‘No.’

‘You looked after them, fed them and watched them grow. And then you drowned them.’

Twelve is frustrated because he doesn’t understand what the Teacher is implying; he can tell the man is trying to prompt him into saying something and he doesn’t know what it is. It upsets him, it makes him feel sick with anxiety. ‘Yes.’ He says helplessly, feeling tears of frustration sting at his eyes.

The man seems to notice and observes him closely. ‘Are you sad?’

‘No.’ Twelve swallows the frustration and looks up at the man again, still not understanding how the request for a new ant farm has escalated into this barrage of questions. He watches as the man takes out a touchpad and taps some notes out onto the screen.

‘Not even after you carefully looked after those ants? You’re not sad now that they’re gone?’

‘Am I not allowed to have more?’

The man hesitates and then leans forward towards the little boy. His voice is measured, careful. ‘Twelve. Do you realise that if we give you more, those are not the same as the ones you took care of, right? You washed away the lives of your little pets. They were alive, just like you and the other children. What if some of the other children were washed away?’

Twelve tugs at the hem of his shirt and shrugs unhappily. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Would you be sad?’

Twelve stands in uncomfortable silence. His brain is screaming at him to say yes, that it is the right answer.

But he knows that he isn’t meant to lie.

The man draws a slow, deep breath at Twelve’s silence and taps out more notes on the touchpad before he gives the young boy a gentle pat on the head. ‘We can’t give you another ant farm, Twelve.’ He says quietly. ‘Go back to your room for now, okay?’

‘Okay.’ He says quietly, nodding as he retreats, feeling like he’s failed some sort of test and not really sure how, or what he was supposed to have done to pass.

The children at the institution are different, so different to any other ‘normal’ child. They’re used to being observed, used to seeing the men and women who take care of them diligently take notes with every single thing they do. They know that they’re special and they know they have to work hard. Failure hits hard, especially if they fail where others succeed, and the conversation with the Teacher has left Twelve feeling ill.

He morosely turns down one of many identical white corridors and nearly runs into another small figure.

‘Nine!’

The other boy stands with his hands in his pockets, observing him expressionlessly. After a moment he huffs a dissatisfied breath. ‘You should have said you were sad. About the ants, I mean.’

Twelve’s eyes go wide. ‘You heard? I-I did say that… but… it didn’t work…’

Nine frowns at him. ‘Later you should go back and say you’re sorry. Say that you miss looking after them and that you didn’t mean it.’

‘Is that the right thing to do?’ Some of the uneasiness in Twelve’s stomach begins to ease a little. ‘Even if I’m not telling the truth?’

‘You don’t have to tell the truth.’ Nine says with a shrug. ‘Sometimes the truth isn’t the correct answer to the question. Sometimes they don’t want to hear the truth. You saw that just now, right? You’ll begin to notice when to say the right thing.’

Twelve anxiously tugs at the hem of his shirt again and nods in earnest. Nine is right, of course… he’s noticed often enough when he says things and the adults exchange knowing looks, or speak in hushed tones when they think he isn’t listening. Twelve knows they don’t understand him, that they don’t really understand any of the children, even though they pretend to.

He knows that Nine knows it too.

What he’ll come to understand not long down the track is that he really doesn’t need another ant farm… because in the institution he basically lives in one, going through the same motions every day along with the other children, and that it’s really only a matter of time before someone pours a glass of water into the tank.


	3. Set the World Ablaze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's always cold, so cold, Nine doesn't know what warmth is any more.

He strikes a match.

It hisses as it catches, the flame springing up brightly from the tip. It’s reflected in the lenses of Nine’s glasses as he raises it, regarding the tiny light with interest. It wavers slightly with his breath, flickers low as it begins to burn up its fuel and he turns the match over so the flame can creep slowly, hungrily up along the wood.

It’s hypnotic. Strangely comforting, even. Evening has fallen, the dull twilight leaving Nine mostly in darkness with only the city lights outside his window and dancing flame for company. It continues to creep up until the heat of it makes the ends of his fingers tingle, and a quick flick of his wrist ends the little flame’s life.

The smoke coils up in a narrow ribbon from the match and Nine catches a whiff of the acrid smell, the scent sending a tingle down along the nape of his neck. He drops the burnt out match onto the table, where it joins several others like it, before he takes a fresh one from the matchbox and strikes it again.

Nine is cold.

Twelve teases him about his personality sometimes, says that he’ll never be able to convince people he’s a proper student if he doesn’t warm up a little, but it goes beyond that. Nine knows his personality is abrasive, but he really, truly is cold, all the time. His fingers never warm up, his face remain pale and somewhat gaunt, absent of any rosiness in his cheeks, unlike the healthy colour Twelve has that matches the vibrancy of his smile.

Nine has grown used to it already long ago, he doesn’t feel the cold anymore. He’s used to numbness in his fingers, he’s used to the almost painful tingle on his skin when he walks into a well-heated room. For as long as he can remember he’s been this way, to the point where the cold is a comforting embrace and heat is something his body seems to reject. The summer sun should warm him during the day, but he barely feels it.

Sometimes Twelve catches him by the wrist to stop him in his tracks when they’re out on the street together, and the heat of the boy’s fingers seem to burn imprints into his skin. More often than not, Nine will jerk back out of his grip not so much because he dislikes the contact, but because the sensation is sharp and unexpected.

He strikes another match with the same sharp flick as the others and watches it sputter into life, his gaze locked on the flame. Mostly he embraces the cold, but sometimes he’s so tired of it, as if death is constantly leaning over it’s shoulder with its chilled touch running down his spine.

More often these days, he’s beginning to wish that he could turn around and embrace it.

The flame creeps closer to where he’s pinching the match between forefinger and thumb and he watches it impassively. The heat tickles his skin, then the sensation begins to become uncomfortable as the flame closes the distance, until finally he drops it with a hiss of pain, raising the burnt fingers to his mouth.

It hurts, but at least he’s feeling something other than cold.

He strikes another match. Another flare, another tiny point of warmth and comfort. He is thoroughly enthralled by this point, leaning so close to the flame over the table that he can smell the match as it slowly burns away. It becomes his sole focus, the only thing in his sight—until suddenly he’s a little boy again, running on bare feet through long, dry grass with the foreboding chain-link fence looming in front of him and the crackle of fire filling his ears.

Nine doesn’t notice his breathing quicken, his eyes widening as cold sweat breaks out over his skin. The smell of burning fills his nose, burning air and grass and flesh, making his eyes water.

The match goes out and Nine is left in darkness.

He drops the burnt out stick on the table with the rest and hangs his head in trembling hands as he draws a slow breath. His fingers curl into his hair, tightening until pain prickles in his scalp. He revels in it, uses it to fuel his anger, to chase away the unwanted memories.

The lights flick on. ‘Nine?’

Twelve closes the door behind him, setting his bag down in the corner. ‘Nine?’ he says again, looking simultaneously bemused and interested. ‘Why are you sitting in the dark?’

Nine doesn’t answer, his head still in his hands, and Twelve’s gaze falls onto the burnt matches peppering the tabletop. He hums knowingly, and moves over to sweep them off the edge into his cupped hand, dropping them in the trash; it isn’t the first time Nine has sought solace in fire and Twelve knows it won’t be the last.

The irony isn’t lost on the boy.

‘The weather is getting colder, you should put the heater on when you come home.’ Twelve pulls a small, square heat pack from his pocket and pries one of Nine’s hands off the boy’s head, forcing the heat pack into it. Nine shoots him a look of contempt which Twelve wards off with his usual good-natured grin. ‘Try not to burn down our apartment while I’m out, hmm?’

It’s a harsh jab, considering, but all Nine does is snort in response and he pockets the heat pack. ‘You’re late.’

‘I got food…!’ Twelve’s sing-song tone is as warm as the rest of him, setting a plastic bag on the table in front of them. He continues talking as he pulls out a take-out container and sets it in front of his stoic friend. ‘Don’t worry, Nine. There won’t be any need to play with matches anymore once we set the world ablaze.’ His smile is tight as he pauses in what he’s doing. ‘And you won’t have to be cold anymore.’

Nine observes him quietly, before answering only with a tired nod. He no longer remembers what it’s like to be anything but cold, anymore.


	4. Malaise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nine is diligent to a fault and overwork can lead to neglect which can lead to breaking down.

The headache pierces Nine right at his temples and for a moment the incessant tapping on the computer keys falters as the screen seems to swim in his vision.

He pauses, drawing a slow careful breath before he slowly taps out the rest of the line of code, then he takes a second to assess how he’s doing. The answer is _not well_ , even he’s able to admit that as he suddenly and inexplicably becomes aware of several things all in one hit; the lance of pain to his head has settled into a dull, steady throb, the muscles in his neck are knotted and painful, and as he shifts in his seat his stomach roils.

The last few days are a blur. He’s spent most of it at his computer, he knows that much, both writing code for the devices that need to be set up at the later stages of their plans and also scoping out the buildings they’re supposed to be hitting next. Nine has always been one of those people who can get completely and utterly absorbed in their work and focus on nothing else, but he does it to a fault, to the point where Twelve sometimes forcefully shuts his laptop or drags him away so that the boy actually gets outside and sees the sun once in a while.

Several cameras feed information back to his computer, both his own and the security he’s hacked into in some cases. He’s been checking, analysing, scrutinising, planning… he’s been so careful, but is only now beginning to realise the one thing he hasn’t been careful of is himself.

Nine tries to remember when he last slept. There are several gaps in his memory but he’s doubtful as to whether or not that’s due to sleep or whether he’d been so absorbed in his tasks that he’d simply been on autopilot. He then tries to remember when he last ate something. There are wrappers of chocolate bars on the desk and he dimly remembers Twelve paying him a visit and leaving them there for him.

He doesn’t remember eating them.

Nine makes the mistake of trying to stand up, and several things happen all at once—the pain lances through his head again, his vision blurs and begins to blacken and he feels the overwhelming urge to throw up. His stomach heaves and he coughs dryly, staggering blindly before his legs hits a chair nearby and he staggers to his knees.

Doubling over, he retches as he crosses his arms over his stomach, the action sending a heavy shudder through him. Sweat breaks out all over him as he becomes aware of everything that’s been building up in his neglected body suddenly, things that had been there for a little while now that he simply hadn’t noticed because he hadn’t moved from the same spot in so long, had been so focused on other things that he hadn’t felt them.

Bile rises in his throat and he swallows it desperately, one hand grasping at air, seeking something to hold on to as the room spins around him. He gasps for breath and realises he’s going to pass out only seconds before it happens.

When Twelve finds him about two hours later, Nine is in a bad state. He’s got a high fever and is laying half-conscious on the cold concrete floor of their workshop, eyes dazed and only half open. Taking in the sight as he stands in the doorway, Twelve sighs softly and closes the door as he moves over to the boy on the floor.

‘Look what you’ve done.’ He murmurs almost fondly, as he observes scattered tools and the chair that had toppled over during Nine’s collapse. ‘I told you this would happen.’

Initially he’d been reminding Nine when to eat, when to drink, and whenever it was possible, when to sleep. After a day or so of this, Twelve stopped trying and instead left him to his own devices… he had known something like this was bound to happen, but more-so than anything else he had been curious to see how neglectful Nine might get. As it turns out, it’s well into the third day of Nine looking after himself… in the sense that he wasn’t looking after himself at _all_ and is now paying for it.

From what he can tell the boy is starved and dehydrated, not to mention severely sleep-deprived. It takes only a touch to Nine’s forehead to feel that he’s burning up and unaware of what’s going on around him.

Twelve sits cross-legged by him and pulls the other’s head into his lap to elevate it a little. His fingers, long and nimble, wind their way into Nine’s hair and play with it a little, stroking soothingly as his thumbs rub gentle circles against the boy’s temples. ‘Nine? Wake up, now.’

Nine responds only with a quiet, distressed groan, rolling his head to the side—trying to, at least, Twelve holds him firm and presses a little harder.

‘You have to drink something.’ Twelve’s boundless energy has been subdued for the moment, brought down by the seriousness of the situation and he speaks with firm, careful words so that they will hopefully reach through Nine’s fevered mind. ‘Nine.’ He snaps his fingers by the other boy’s ear and Nine flinches.

There’s a water bottle on the floor, also knocked over from Nine’s fall, but luckily the lid is on and it’s still full. Twelve leans over and stretches for it, rolling it closer with his fingertips before he’s able to pick it up and unscrew the cap. He removes Nine’s glasses, placing them out of harm’s way before placing one hand under the boy’s chin to tip his head back.

‘Nine, I’m going to help you drink.’

The other is breathing shallowly, and Twelve can see patches of sweat darkening his friend’s shirt. Nine’s eyes are still glazed and he seems mostly unresponsive, so Twelve parts his lips with his thumb and tips a thin stream of water into the other’s mouth. Nine chokes on it almost immediately and coughs harshly before retching again, so Twelve rolls the boy over onto his side just in case he vomits. He’s not surprised, since he knows Nine’s stomach will be rebelling against anything right about then.

'Tch... and this is why I can't leave you.' Twelve sighs and brushes the hair out of Nine's eyes before forcefully tipping up his head again to try and make him drink again. It goes down a little easier this time, though Nine fights him weakly, with little effect. It seems to help almost immediately though, some of the strain in the boy's face leaving and—after a little more coaxing—he seems to be making the effort to drink it himself.

He mumbles something when the water bottle leaves his lips and Twelve bends down to listen. Nine's voice is barely more than a breath as he says it again.

'Ate?' Twelve chuckles, running a hand over the barely conscious boy's brow. 'Not for a few days, you haven't. That's why you're in this mess.'

But Nine repeats himself again and then says something else, something that sounds an awful lot like ' _five_ ' and with a chill Twelve realises he's not talking about food he's talking about _Eight_ and he's counting, or rather he isn't, he's listing names in his feverish state and Twelve can only guess at what must be plaguing the other boy's mind at that moment.

Some people say fever dreams are the worst and Twelve already knows the nightmares that Nine deals with in a normal evening, he can only imagine what he might be going through the other's mind when he's this ill. He knows he needs to get Nine out of the workshop and into the significantly more comfortable apartment space and get some food into him but that's going to require some severe effort and he's pretty sure the dead weight of his friend won't be all that fun to manoeuvre.

'Nine...' he whispers his companion's name as he leans over him. 'Hey, I promise that I'll make sure you eat every day, okay? I promise I'll make you go to bed when I go to bed.' he pauses to carefully pour a little more water down the other boy's throat. Nine coughs slightly but the sound is less harsh than before and it doesn't seem like he's going to throw it back up again.

He continues to speak to him and when all the quiet promises and coaxing begins to sound worn out to his ears he switches instead to talking about his day, where he had been and what he had done, the things he had seen. He talks nonsense, he quietly jokes and then laughs at it himself and he realises about half an hour later that the other's eyes are open.

Twelve stops talking and peers down at him but yes, they really are well and truly open and focused up on his face. 'Nine?'

Nine seems to only manage a soft sigh in response, his eyes closing for a moment. The water must have done him some good and Twelve silently congratulates himself for managing to get this far.

'Nine, can you stand?'

This time, Nine utters a short, sharp laugh and immediately winces, a hand drifting to his stomach as it lurches again from the sudden movement. Twelve knows that the other is probably going to be feeling the after-effects of his neglect for days on end, even after a good night's sleep and a proper meal, but there's not a lot that can be done but to ease him back into it.

'Want me to stay here and talk to you a little bit more until you feel good enough to help me get you to the apartment?'

'Yes.' Nine's voice is hoarse and barely audible but it's there, and Twelve smiles brightly in response.

Their friendship is unusual and unhealthy even at the best of times... but there's something comforting that they share, a knowledge that they're not alone in life and that even if the rest of the world is standing against them they have the knowledge and security that there is at least one other like them who can catch them if they fall.


	5. Identify

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's in a name? that which we call a rose  
> By any other name would smell as sweet

_What’s in a name?_

When Twelve turns the page of the book he pauses on the Shakespeare quote which stands in bold print, the words seeming to leap out at him.

He draws his legs up under him on the sofa and carefully reads the quote in its entirety; it seems to be a reference to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and Twelve thinks of roses and thorns and what he might have been if he’d had a real name instead of only a number.

The quote implies that no matter what something may be called it doesn’t change what that something is. _A rose by any other name…_ he glances up at Nine who’s sitting at the table by the apartment window, tapping incessantly away at his computer, and he wonders if a name might have dispelled some of the thorns on this particular rose.

_A name is usually a gift of love._

Twelve feels his throat constrict as the words suddenly flash through his mind and he closes the book so he no longer has to look at the quote on the page. Of course he still remembers the day he was given his number; all the children had been through that same speech, had been assigned a digit while they were still clinging to one another in confusion and fear.

Some had tried to keep using their names after having been given their assigned numbers, but it never lasted long; the Teachers had ways of drumming the identity out of a person until there wasn’t much left of the child they had been when they had first been admitted. The whole institution was designed that way; everything was white, their clothes were white, the walls were white—there was no room for creativity, no room for individuality, only the tests and their Teachers and yes, each other, if you managed to cling to your spirit firmly enough that the institution didn't leave you broken.

Twelve wonders if he's broken sometimes. He doesn't _feel_ broken but reads when he can and watches television and he knows about emotion and the way it's supposed to work. He would be able to write an essay on the topic if he were asked, he has enough knowledge of it all, the problem is simply that he can't seem to apply the logic involved to _himself_.

During the day they show terrible soap operas on TV and Twelve loves watching them because everything is just so over-the-top dramatic but also maybe a little because they're caricatures of emotion, they're faces twisted in sadness, they're pure, unadulterated joy and relief, they're melodramatic anger and betrayal.

Sometimes Twelve catches himself making the same faces as the characters on the screen, but it's never more than an imitation, he simply can't seem to find the matching emotion in his heart.

_A rose by any other name._

_A child by any other name._

A child not categorised by a number, a child with the gift of love. A child raised in the arms of a loving parent, or sibling, a child unbroken. A child with an identity and sense of self.

'What's in a name?' his knuckles are white and his hands tremble slightly with how hard he's gripping the book, his voice hollow to his own ears.

Hands cover his own, fingers prying his grip open until the book falls to the floor. Twelve looks up as if seeing ahead for the first time and Nine is there, staring down at him with that same quiet calm he usually carries about him. Twelve knows that the other boy is just as damaged as himself, perhaps even more so...

Twelve is big, jagged shards of glass but Nine is tiny hairline fractures that are almost unnoticeable until maybe, one day, someone might tap the glass in such away that the entire thing shatters.

They stare at one another in silent contemplation before Nine takes a seat beside him and leans back with a soft sigh.

'There's nothing in a name. Names are insignificant, you can take whichever you like, whenever you like... some people even refuse to use their given names and ask people to call them something else. Names are traded in marriage, famous names put people under pressure they can't handle.' he folds his hands atop the book in his lap as he turns his head to look across at Twelve. 'They aren't as necessary as our Teachers led us to believe.'

Twelve knows that Nine is trying to make him feel better and he knows the gesture is significant. At the end of it all, Nine had been a lot more susceptible to the institution's methods than Twelve himself had been, and that just dredging up those memories is painful enough for the quiet boy, let alone to argue against them.

But he also knows that Nine is right, in a way... the numbers might be cold and impersonal but at the end of the day isn't that what suits them _just_ right?

Apparently still sensing some of the normally energetic youth's scepticism, Nine sits forward a little to hold him in a firm gaze. 'How many names have you taken in the time we've been planning all of this? How many people have you "been"?'

Twelve hesitates and counts them, running quickly through his head and ending with his current alias, Hisami Touji. It's true, they've gone through a lot of names, burning bridges behind them every time they switched to a new one. It made things difficult when it came to paperwork but not impossible.

Nine watches him and when Twelve seems to come to some sort of conclusion he nods. 'And did you feel significant with any of those names, more-so than the others? Did you feel like a better person because of any of those names?'

'No. But...' Twelve shakes his head, knowing that Nine is trying to help but trying to find a way to explain to him that his concern isn't the names themselves. 'You're right, people change their names, or ignore them, or throw them away. But the fact of the matter is that they were given one. It's still a special gift, Nine.'

Nine's eyes narrow behind their frames and he makes a soft, dissatisfied sound. 'I could give you a name.'

Staring at him with wide eyes, Twelve isn't sure if he's joking, or still just trying to cheer him up. He laughs in response but goes quiet when Nine doesn't even crack a smile.

He's not joking.

'Nine--'

'If it matters so much, if you want that gift I can give it to you.'

'Nine, that's not--'

He's interrupted again. 'But when it comes down to it, you're Twelve. To me you're always Twelve. If you want that gift I can come up with a name for you that I think suits you, with kanji that is a perfect description of who you are, but...' Nine shakes his head. ' _I_ don't need a name. My name is no longer a number, it's who I am. Maybe other people were given a gift, but I took what I was given and I _made_ it mine. And you are no less you for having your name. It's different, but it's yours. Make it yours.'

Twelve gapes at him, finding himself all at once at a loss for words.

Nine hands him the book and Twelve takes it carefully, though he doesn't take his eyes off the other boy.

'They're not a part of our lives anymore.' Nine says quietly, pressing a hand to his friend's shoulder. 'Don't let them be. We're not numbers anymore, you know that... we have names. Don't throw yours away.'

The irony isn't lost on Twelve as he hugs the book to his chest, watching the taller boy cross the apartment to take a seat at his computer again. After all, of the two of them it's Nine who has the most frequent nightmares, the most vivid flashbacks to their childhood.

But the both of them know that when Twelve _does_ lose himself in the knowledge that he isn't like Everyone Else he is even less stable than the other boy and the realisation, that no matter what, Nine is there to ground him again is enough to begin piecing the shards that make up his heart back together again.


	6. Clean-Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Twelve comes home at the end of a normal day, Nine suddenly finds his hands full with a situation he'd rather not deal with.

Nine knows something isn’t right when Twelve walks in the door. Usually the boy greets him with a hearty ‘I’m home~!’ and will tell Nine all about his day even if Nine doesn’t particularly want to hear it.

Today, however, Twelve shuffles in and shuts the door quietly behind him. His shoulders are slumped and his head is bowed and he manages only the faintest ghost of a smile when he greets the other boy. Standing at the sink, rinsing out the cup he’d used earlier for coffee, Nine returns Twelve’s smile with a slight nod and watches the boy trudge over to the sofa to take a seat.

And then he just sits there.

Nine remains at the sink, waiting for something to happen, waiting for the other to bounce back and switch over to his usual excitable self, and when that doesn’t happen he sets the cup down in the sink and wanders across to him, rounding the sofa and leaning over slightly to look him in the face.

Twelve looks dazed, his eyes seem a little unfocused although they alight on Nine’s face when it comes into his line of sight. Nine can tell that the other boy’s breathing is short and shallow and that’s not a good sign. ‘Twelve? Is everything alright?’

'Nine…' Twelve's voice is quiet and a little plaintive as he reached out to snag one of Nine's sleeves in his fingers. 'I don't feel so g—'

Then he leans over with an arm across his waist as he abruptly heaves out the contents of his stomach onto the floor.

Nine isn’t the type to panic but he does his equivalent of it, which means his mind immediately hurtles into a hundred hypotheses as to why this is happening and concurrently thinks up multiple solutions to fix them. This would be helpful if the information overload isn’t useless coming in all at once like that and his knee-jerk reaction is to yank back just in time so vomit doesn’t splatter across his feet while _thank god we have floorboards_  flashes through his brain. With Twelve holding a death-grip on his sleeve he doesn’t get far.

Twelve moans pitifully, slumped over with his head practically hanging between his knees and Nine can see that he’s shivering all over. Deciding it’s not the best time for questions, he leans down to wrap an arm around the sick boy and forcefully hoists him to his feet. ‘Bathroom, right now.’

Even through the cotton shirt Twelve is wearing Nine can feel that the other is burning up. The shudders running through Twelve’s skinny frame. Twelve’s eyes are glazed and watery, presumably from just having thrown up and he looks completely out of it.

Apparently the short trip to the bathroom is enough to shake him up again because the second they get in the door of the tiny room a heave wracks through the shorter boy again and Nine practically drops him in his hurry to avoid being collateral damage. Luckily Twelve seems to have enough self-control to stumble forward to the toilet before he retches again, ridding himself of the little that was left behind after the first wave.

Nine groans and turns away, covering his mouth with one hand as his stomach lurches in sympathy with Twelve’s plight and he has to take a few deep, careful breaths to remain at all useful in this situation.

_"Are you okay"_  seems to be rather a redundant question in this case, so instead he asks; ‘What’s brought this on?’ it isn’t particularly comforting but Nine blames it on the fact that he’s a little shaken up by the sudden onslaught on his senses.

Twelve mumbles something into the toilet bowl that doesn’t sound like actual words but Nine’s already come to the conclusion that it’s either some kind of stomach virus or food poisoning. He wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be the latter as Twelve is always shoving some weird snack into his mouth and he’s not particular about where it comes from. Either way, Nine knows he’s in for a long night.

He leaves Twelve with his head in the toilet to head back out to the kitchen, temporarily ignoring the splattered mess by the sofa.  _That_  was going to be fun to clean up later. He pours out a glass of water and goes back to the bathroom, also grabbing a facecloth before kneeling down beside Twelve who looks white as a sheet and is clinging to the toilet bowl like it’s his last hope. ‘Rinse out your mouth and then try and drink a little.’ Nine brings the glass closer to him and sees that the tremors in Twelve’s body seem to be constant now, to the point where the other boy’s teeth are chattering a little. ‘I’m going to get you to bed but only after I know you won’t need to throw up again.’

Twelve takes the glass in both hands and looks up as Nine holds the facecloth out to him as well. When Twelve only looks at him blankly he sighs and leans forward to wipe at his mouth and chin, cleaning him up a little. He can see Twelve’s hair sticking to his sweaty forehead and the boy looks like a mere shadow of the person that Nine is used to dealing with.

'How are you feeling?'

'Gross.' is the reply, hoarse and a little pained.

'Understandably. Can you stand up?'

'If I do I'm going to hurl again.'

Sighing, Nine stands and assures Twelve he’ll be right back before heading out to the apartment once more. The sickly stink hangs in the air and he presses the back of his hand against his nose, groaning inwardly. Wonderful.

Moments later he comes back into the bathroom with a spare blanket of thick wool. It’s the warmer season and they don’t generally need it so it had been packed away in a closet but with the way Twelve’s body is shaking Nine knows his body temperature is probably out of control so he wraps the blanket around the other’s skinny shoulders even though Twelve protests weakly.

'Nooo, I'm too hot…!'

'You're not, you're freezing, your skin is clammy. You have a fever. You're going to have to sweat it out and if you're camping out on the bathroom floor you need to keep warm.'

Twelve whines and slumps against the toilet bowl and Nine grimaces, pressing down the flush to empty it out.

'I'm going to go clean up outside, I want you to finish that glass of water in the meantime and when I come back we're going to attempt to move you.'

'Nine…' Twelve's voice is still a plaintive wine as he crosses his arms over his stomach. 'It hurts… ngh…'

'I'll get you some medicine, just… stay there a moment.' Nine is pretty sure that it's food poisoning; vomiting and cramps ( _so far_ , he thinks miserably), which probably means that Twelve is in for a pretty tough night and will be spending a good portion of it sitting on or hugging the toilet. But at least it isn’t something they need to go to the hospital for as that would cause all sorts of extra issues.

He stops a few metres from the sofa and covers his face with both hands for a moment, really not looking forward to what he has to do next. It takes a good twenty minutes for him to mop up the splatter on the floor because he has to take a moment every so often to breathe in some fresh air.

By then the groaning in the bathroom has ceased and when Nine sticks his head in to check on the other he finds Twelve looking a little dazed still, but the glass of water is empty and the shivers seem to have subsided a little. He doesn’t bother asking this time, he simply leans down and lifts the other boy off the ground.

Twelve doesn’t protest, he just hangs limply in Nine’s arms as the latter carries him out of the bathroom and over to the stairs that lead up to the loft where they sleep. It’s tricky but he manoeuvres his way up and manages to tuck his companion in without further incident. The shivers still worry him a little and he piles on the blankets to make sure Twelve isn’t cold.

'Thanks…' Twelve is watching him through half-lidded eyes, his breathing still shallow but a lot more even, his cheeks now a little flushed from fever as opposed to the icy white they had been before.

'It's fine,' Nine assures him, reaching out to place a cool palm against the other's burning forehead, smoothing his hair away from his eyes at the same time. 'Rest, I'll be here if you need anything.'

He watches over him for a little while, checking the internet on his phone for ways to best treat food poisoning. As he’d thought, hydration is important and once the body had purged itself it was a good idea to start on gentle foods like broth. By the time he’s finished his research, Twelve seems to have dropped off into a troubled sleep, though he still squirms a little in discomfort every so often, and Nine climbs down from the loft to check what was available in the house that could be used to make food for a sensitive stomach.

It was going to be a  _long_  night.


	7. Going Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only in solitude does Nine allow himself to get lost in music and consequently in his thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please listen to Ásgeir Trausti's 'Going Home' either before or during this fic as it's the song that Nine is listening to! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mszN_cAttaA

Nine barely knows what it’s like to feel anything anymore. When the only thing you have in your heart is guilt, sometimes it’s easier to just shut down and lock away all your emotions in a box until you have nothing to hinder you.

Sometimes when he is alone, when Twelve has gone to bed or has gone out for the day Nine seeks out solitude on the roof of their apartment building, he stands and looks out over the cityscape while his headphones cancel out the buzz of civilisation.

And he allows himself to  _feel_.

Nine loves music, all kinds… it’s like a comfort blanket, a physical thing he can wrap around himself when the noise of the real world gets to become too much and the buzzing in his ears grows so loud it’s impossible to ignore. On the roof the wind is strong, it whips around him, pulls at his clothes and hair and Nine doesn’t mind because if he closes his eyes he feels like he’s  _flying_ , like he can step off the edge of the rooftop and  _soar_  if he wants to, like he can lose himself in the melodies and scatter in the wind to all the corners of the earth.

_Home,_  the voice in his ears murmurs,  _I’m making my way home._

And he truly feels like it, he’s been feeling like this for weeks now as their plan unfolds, as each successful step brings them towards their conclusion, to the end of their wandering. He curls his fingers in the cold links of the fence in front of him.

_My mind’s already there. Yes my mind is—_

formulae and coding and perfectly programmed not to let emotion stand in his way while Twelve is everything he is not, an over-abundance of joy and energy who wears his heart on his sleeve and Nine sees that and hates it and  _admires_  it and hopes Twelve never leaves him because he’s

_—light, you’re with me in the dark—_

everything Nine is not and Nine needs him to be the counter-weight to his nothingness because he has the mission and only the mission… and Twelve has everything

_Light my way at night, let your light shine._

Nine draws a shaky breath and lets his head tip back as an icy wind races along his arms and the cold feels  _good_  for once, he’s already so used to it but the cool touch is like fingers on his skin, like a physical touch dragging goosebumps along after it. His thoughts swirl as if they’re swept up by the wind as well, he thinks of everything and nothing, of white walls and frightened faces, of sunny days and a bright smile, of bombs and riddles and masks and their mission, their mission, their

_—burden weighs me down, the heaviest of weights_

mission is so important and he has nothing else left in his life to the point it fills his entire being most days; he sits in school and stares out the window during lessons but he doesn’t hear a single thing the teachers tell him, he knows it all anyway it’s useless to pay attention.

Instead he thinks of variables and risks in their plan, of the riddles and whether their difficulty is on point because people don’t  _think_  like he and Twelve do, people are so difficult to understand.

_And I walk alone; one wish won’t be forgotten, never forget that._

He knows they don’t understand, that everyone outside of the children in the institution won’t ever understand, knows that the police think they’re kids playing games and it’s frustrating and upsetting and he yearns to explain it all,  _burns_  for it but knows that he can’t, knows he has to wait, no matter how exhausting it is to deal with human stupidity, the mob mentality, their panic when faced with the unknown.

_And though my body tires, and I have far to go_

He opens his eyes and stares out at the cityscape, at the sunlight sparkling off windows and rooftops and it’s altogether beautiful and sickening and his heart lurches because he both loves and hates this world for what it is, what it stands for, what it’s done to him.

More than anything else he hates himself and what he has become, but he knows that in the end when it’s all over and they’ve finally reached their goal, after months—no, years of planning… he knows.

_I know I’m going home._

_Know I’m going home._


	8. Connection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They used to connect and now they don't. Things will always continue to change as people grow.

Years ago it wasn’t unusual for small hands with trembling fingers to seek one another out in the darkness of the abandoned warehouse, entwining together and squeezing tight as the two young boys would huddle together to keep warm.

Twelve never cried while Nine rarely stopped. They were bruised and bloody, their bare feet lacerated to the point where they’d had to stop walking because they could barely take another step. Nine’s face had been stained with dirty tear-tracks and his white gown from the institution had torn after it had caught on the top of the fence they’d had to scale in their escape, so Twelve had used a scrap of the fabric to wipe his companion’s face even as Nine kept hiccupping sobs into his fists.

They had failed. Even in their successful attempt at escape it was still a failure, both boys had felt that sting although neither dared to put it into words. They had pulled Five along, had watched her trip, had left her behind. Twelve hadn’t looked back, but Nine’s desperate scream still rang in his ears even if it had been a full day since they’d climbed their way to freedom.

He had wrapped his arms around Nine’s shaking shoulders, pulling him close and letting the other boy nuzzle in against him. Nine clung to him as if he was an anchor in a merciless storm and they had sat there until the sun rose.

Twelve had always looked up to Nine. The boy had been quiet and composed at the institution, they had been brought in at the same time and when Twelve had noticed the other—his face calm but his hands shaking slightly, betraying his nerves—he had shuffled a little closer in the group and had snuck his hand over to hook his pinkie with that of the other. Nine had looked up, surprised and grateful, and they had stuck together ever since.

Nine had fit in well, the Teachers liked him. He had never been honest, Twelve knew that now; he always said what they expected to hear and accepted their approving nods with a composed demeanour too mature for a child his age. Twelve had admired him for that, he seemed to be in such good grace with the adults, while Twelve could never seem to get it right. He would complete their tasks quickly and efficiently, and yet they would talk amongst themselves and frown thoughtfully as they observed him in such a way that he felt their gazes like a physical thing crawling on his skin.

Twelve had always come to Nine at the institution when his frustration spiked to the point that he got anxiety and Nine had always talked him down again and patiently explained how Twelve could work things to his advantage.

Nine taught him more than anyone else at the institution had managed to, because Nine had understood him. But when the time had come for them to step outside the restrictive walls, Nine had fallen apart.

Twelve understood what guilt was; he had experienced it himself more than he would have liked—although his Teachers had always informed him it was for all the wrong reasons. So he’d understood what Nine was going through the sickening hollowness in the pit of your stomach when you knew you had failed at something. Twelve may not have felt the same about the loss of the other children as Nine had, but he could tell the other boy took it terribly personally.

They had spent their first night of freedom on a dirty floor in a warehouse by the roadside, huddled together like little mice seeking warmth and comfort, and Nine had fallen asleep with his tears soaking into Twelve’s clothes.

If they had been the same as other children their age they never would have survived on their own, but there was one thing the institution had given them and that was the strength to survive. They had the intelligence and wit to make it through their time there without their will being broken—they were prepared for anything else.

* * *

Twelve sits on the loft bed with his arms hanging over the edge and wonders at which point the tearful boy from the institution had turned into the silent, dedicated young man he currently lives with.

The more time had passed since their escape, the more Nine had seemed to begun internalising his feelings. He had stopped taking Twelve’s hand when he needed silent reassurance that everything would be okay. He had stopped telling Twelve about his worries the way he had when they had been alone together doing everything they had to to survive. He had become less and less vocal over the years, until it had gotten to the point where Twelve had to ask specific questions whenever he wanted to know what Nine was thinking.

Twelve wishes sometimes they could go back to being children, if only so he could feel like Nine wasn’t blocking him out anymore.

Sometimes when the night is rough for Nine—when the nightmares shake him awake and he sits up in bed breathing hard—Twelve climbs down from the loft only to be turned away with a brisk ‘It’s fine. I’m fine.’

Twelve tries his best every time not to show how it irritates him that Nine is lying right to his face.

Which is another thing that seems to have changed over the years; whether it’s by omission or by the way Nine brushes him off whenever Twelve asks him something he  _knows_  is bothering the boy, Nine lies to him. Back when they were children there had never been a cause to lie, sometimes when they’d had a moment they had sat together in silence but other times they had quietly spilled their thoughts about nothing and everything in total honesty, finding comfort in sharing.

But nowadays it feels like Nine is only pushing him away.

‘Nine.’ When he says the other’s name his tone is plaintive and he knows it. He doesn’t care.

The other looks up from his place at the kitchen table and doesn’t reply, waiting for Twelve to keep talking. When he gets only silence his eyes narrow slightly behind his glasses. ‘Yes?’

Honestly, Twelve had not considered anything he wanted to say to his friend. He’d only felt the urge to connect again, like every time Nine actually looks at him is a reward, every word the other speaks is a rare treat.

‘I miss you.’ The words are out of his mouth before he even realises what he’s saying.

Nine looks surprised for a moment. He shifts in his seat to face the other and the surprise changes to confusion; it’s an unusual thing for Twelve to say, he knows what the other boy is like and he knows that affection doesn’t work quite the way it should in Twelve’s mind. Emotions are skewed and different for Twelve and Nine will admit that even after all these years he still can’t accurately predict how his companion will react to anything.

‘What are you talking about? I’m here now aren’t I?’

‘Are you?’ Twelve arches an eyebrow and Nine scowls.

‘What’s with the riddles?’

‘Being in a room with you is like being by myself sometimes, you know.’

Nine doesn’t reply, scrutinising Twelve for a moment to gauge whether or not the other is making fun of him. Half the time when Twelve puts on serious airs he’s only toying with Nine, so it’s a little difficult for the taller boy to take him seriously at any given time. He knows Twelve cares for him in his own way but he’s not an affectionate person; energetic and happy certainly, but even when they’d been younger Nine had always had the distinct impression Twelve’s interest in him wasn’t so much friendship as it was that he found Nine amusing.

As the silence stretches—Nine feels that this isn’t something he needs to apologise for—Twelve smiles and shakes his head. ‘Don’t worry. I’m just kidding.’

Even though he isn’t.


	9. You're Bad for Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can give up bad habits but you can't as easily give up bad friends.

Anyone watching them might think they were just two friends hanging out after school and for Twelve, at least, he was happy enough for that to be the case.

In truth they had been scoping out the government building at the centre of town for a few days now. They know all the diagnostics of it, the measurements and statistics, the kind of people that come through the building on a regular basis and the blueprints of it all but there is something very personal about going there themselves and comparing cold figures on a page to how the building actually operates during a regular day.

Twelve observes that Nine walks with his hands in his pockets, his arms tucked in close to his sides. He looks relaxed to the casual observer, certainly, but Twelve knows him well and can see his guard is well up as he glances around.

The building itself is gigantic, the entrance lobby alone is huge with a café and gift shop inside it as well as the main reception desk. The public streams in and out without a care; certain areas require security cards but most are open to everyone, and Twelve sees a class of middle-schoolers looking bored as their teacher gestures around and tries to explain to them the significance of the place.

‘It’s just like we thought.’ Twelve smiles across at his friend, who’s standing a few paces away gazing up at the columns that tower above them to support the ceiling, above which the building stretches up into the sky to an impressive height. ‘You were right, Nine.’ He doesn’t sound impressed, just satisfied. After all it isn’t much of a shock, Nine is never wrong.

The other boy doesn’t reply and he glances around at the crowds, contemplating something privately. Twelve decides to leave him to it and wanders over to peruse the gift shop; the public works mascot is so cute and Twelve picks up one of the plush toys, squeezing it fondly in his fingers.

The little creature has a big part in their plan, after all.

‘Come on.’ Nine is suddenly close by him, Twelve hadn’t even heard him approach. ‘I’ve seen enough, we can head back. It’s going to work out fine when we put our plan into action, they’re heavily under-prepared for any serious incident.’

Twelve holds up the Kururin plush in front of his face and squeaks at him in an imitation of the mascot’s voice. ‘Buy me! Buy me!’

Nine’s eyes narrow, not quite in irritation but he isn’t impressed. ‘You have more of those at home currently than you know what to do with, I really don’t think you need another one.’

Twelve smiles brightly behind his fuzzy friend before turning it around to look at it. ‘But just look at its little face. It’s so cute. It needs a home too!’ He holds it up so close to Nine’s face that the other has to actually lean back a little to avoid the toy. ‘Just pretend it’s my birthday.’

‘It’s not your birthday.’

‘You don’t know that.’ Twelve smiles slyly as he hugs the toy childishly to his chest. ‘It _could_ be my birthday.’

‘By that logic,’ Nine responds slowly, now beginning to sound a little irritated as he puts a hand on top of the toy and firmly pushes it down out of his way. ‘It could be my birthday too. Stop playing around, we should go.’

Twelve’s smile doesn’t wilt in the slightest, in actual fact it grows a little. He finds it pretty funny when Nine gets annoyed by little things, it’s hard to get a rise out of the more serious boy so when it happens he always quietly congratulates himself. For some reason today he’s in the mood to really get on Nine’s case. ‘I’m sorry, you’re totally right. Happy birthday!’

Nine fixes him with a hard look and then turns to head to the exit..

It’s true that basically everyone has a birthday, so it’s logical that the boys themselves _definitely_ have one, but for children who were told at a young age that they were abandoned, that love is not a luxury in their lives, a birthday is not a special occasion. Neither of them know the date—no doubt their Teachers knew, once upon a time—and neither ever bothered to find out.

Twelve sets Kururin back on the shelf and hurries after Nine’s retreating back, a spring in his step as he hums a tune. That tune is 'happy birthday to you' and it takes only about a minute for Nine to round on him, stopping so suddenly in Twelve's path that the other nearly collides with him.

'Stop it.'

'But I'm just—'

' _Stop_.'

Twelve's grin is huge and smug and utterly infuriating and it takes everything in Nine's power to stop himself from grabbing the other by the collar and dragging him home as quickly as possible. He doesn’t know which side of Twelve irritates him more; then the boy has his cheerfulness plastered on so thick for the sake of appearances in front of others that the fakeness of it is sickening, or when the cheerfulness is genuine but at Nine’s expense.

The birthday remarks sting because Nine spends so much of his time trying not to think about the institution and what it did to him, who it turned him in to. As petty as it is, it’s still a reminder along with their names that they are different.

His guard remains up even when Twelve falls into step beside him, apparently settling down for the moment. Nine knows that after being told off that like Twelve won’t be content to simply let it go, Nine’s been with the other boy long enough to know that on the contrary, Twelve will probably nettle him for the rest of the afternoon with the same subject.

They manage to make it almost all the way home before Twelve opens his mouth again. ‘If you could get one birthday present, what would it be?’

 _Sure enough_.

Nine exhales sharply through his nose in response and doesn’t reply, his body language more than enough to show he’s done with the subject as he jams the key into the lock to let the two of them into their place.

‘I think I just want a cake.’ Twelve keeps talking as if Nine had actually responded to him, his tone thoughtful as he idly taps a fingertip against his chin. ‘Nothing extravagant, just… a little cake would be nice. Strawberry shortcake, maybe. Or chocolate cream.’

‘You eat enough sweets to put an ordinary person into a diabetic coma, you don’t need any more cake.’ He realises immediately after replying that he shouldn’t have; it’s only in invitation for Twelve to keep talking.

‘There’s always room for cake. _Especially_ birthday cake, it’s such a _special occasion_ after all.’

Nine stops just inside the doorway with a tired sigh. He doesn’t have the energy for this today, not when his nerves are stretched to breaking point already from putting the final stages of their plan into action. Truth be told he really doesn’t mind when Twelve teases him so much, he knows it’s the other’s way of blowing off steam the way Nine sometimes seeks solitude in order to lose himself in music.

There’s just something about Twelve’s joke this time that really rubs him the wrong way.

‘What do you want me to say, exactly?’

The other perks up, looking interested in the question as he kicks off his shoes while coming inside. This is rare. This isn’t even irritation, this seems to be quiet dejection instead, something he rarely sees from his composed friend. He’s struck a nerve and he knows it, so he dials it back, not wanting to press too hard when Nine needed to be at his best in order for everything they’d planned to stay on track.

‘I didn’t mean anything by it, Nine.’

As always, Nine immediately feels stupid for responding the way that he had and he hates himself for it. Twelve has a way of making him feel guilty even if Twelve is the one at fault and it doesn’t matter how often Nine reminds himself of the other’s skills at emotional blackmail he can’t help but always feel like he’s overreacting in situations like this.

‘I’m sorry. I’m tired.’

Twelve smiles and steps past him, briefly linking his pinkie finger into Nine’s, a habit he’d had since they had first gotten to know one another. It’s a small gesture but it was one of the first kind touches Nine had felt in the institution and it’s still a comfort to him. Twelve knows it’s the easiest way to bring the other back from the brink of anger and he uses it to his advantage whenever he needs to. ‘It’s okay.’

As he slips away, humming brightly as he wanders over to the kitchen to make himself a snack, Nine feels as conflicted as he always does when Twelve does this but ultimately he comes to the conclusion that he’s just overreacting and Twelve was being harmless. It’s a never-ending circle and it exhausts Nine but he _needs_ Twelve… and the other knows it.

They spend the remainder of the afternoon in silence and for the most part Twelve leaves him alone, for which Nine is grateful.

* * *

The next morning when Twelve wakes up he sees Nine isn’t in his bed, and when he comes down from the loft to make himself coffee he finds a white box on the kitchen table.

‘Nine?’ he calls out but his voice echoes around the empty apartment.

Sitting down at the table with his coffee, curiosity overcomes him and he reaches over to pull the box closer to open it. Staring into it for a long moment he then lets out a breathy laugh of delight, propping his chin up in the palm of one hand as he reaches out with the other to swipe a swirl of cream off the top of the strawberry shortcake and pop it into his mouth.

_Happy Birthday._


	10. Hide and Seek

Lisa tries to catch her breath as her feet slip on the smooth floor. She goes skidding around the corner of the desk and quickly scrambles to get under it, drawing her knees up close so she’s packed in as tightly as possible, her hands over her mouth to try and smother how harsh her breaths are.

He’s coming for her.

She hears the door creak and her eyes widen in the darkness. She has no doubt that if he switches the lights on he’ll find her almost immediately; the workshop is large and with plenty of nooks and hiding places but it’s not so large that she stands any chance of going unfound.

Her heart hammers so loud in her chest she’s certain he must be able to hear it, but the lights don’t come on.

‘Lisa~’

Squashing herself tighter into the space under the desk, Lisa anxiously looks up through the darkness at the sing-song tone of his voice, seeing the dim glow of the light from outside the workshop. Still the lights don’t come on, but she hears him step into the room, the door shutting behind him.

Lisa counts silently in time with her breaths to calm herself and she sits as still as possible. She can hear him as he moves around the workspace, nudging chairs aside as he looks for her, slowly creeping closer. She wonders if she waits for him to get far enough from the door that she might be able to make a run for it, but the room is still dark and he knows it better than her.

‘Lisa… Lisaaa~ where are you? I know you ran in here.’

She has to try. If she doesn’t move, he’ll find her by process of elimination. Carefully unfolding herself from under the desk as quietly as possible, she braces a hand against the edge of it before launching herself out from under it, bolting in the direction of the door.

He’s after her in an instant, she sees the shadow of his figure in her peripheral vision and inhales sharply as she stretches out an arm to the door handle.

She’s so close that her fingertips brush the cold steel when his grip closes around her other wrist and she gives a short, startled shriek as he pulls her back so sharply she collides against him. The sound turns into laughter as the momentum sends them both tumbling to the floor, tools scattering around them as Twelve holds her tightly in his arms.

‘I  _got_  you!! I told you I would!’

Lisa squirms, giggles still escaping her as she tries to wriggle out of his hold but his skinny frame hides a surprising amount of strength. ‘It isn’t fair, you counted so quickly…! I didn’t have time to hide properly.’

‘Don’t be a sore loser, Lisa!’

She feels his fingers tickling at her waist and yelps, her wriggling resuming with renewed strength. ‘Don’t! That’s not  _fair_!’

Twelve laughs and lets her go, allowing her to scramble to her feet and following suit, reaching over to open the door and let the light from the hall spill into the darkened workshop. In the glow Lisa stands with flushed cheeks and a sparkle of energy in her eyes, eyes which had been so dull when he had met her for the first time. She’s wearing his clothes, a loose grey shirt and sweatpants that are too big for her but it’s somehow endearing.

His smile grows as he seems to consider, before shutting the door again and pulling her closer by the hand.

He presses a kiss to her cheek with lips that had uttered threats on her life once and he hears her breath catch in her throat. When he draws back a little he has just enough light by which to see her eyes have gone wide, which brings him an odd sense of satisfaction. He closes the distance again and this time his lips meet the corner of hers and he feels her exhale softly as he brings both hands up to cup her face.

In the darkness it’s warm, intimate.

Twelve feels nothing.

Perhaps Hisami might have, if he’d been an ordinary student who’d been playing hide and seek with his cute classmate like this. Perhaps Hisami might have blushed or stammered or hesitated before kissing her.

But Hisami is only a pretence, an outer layer to hide Twelve’s true self from the world and it’s Twelve who’s kissing her, who is watching her face through half-lidded eyes even as he does so.

Lisa is not as ignorant as some might think, she knows Twelve is a toxic force that she should be wary of but her life has been nothing but poison to her so far and while she hasn’t quite become immune to it she certainly has built up an extremely powerful resistance. Their kiss is a test of character; of each other’s and their own.

He smells of sweets, of chocolate and something else under all of it, something sharp and dangerous, and she hesitantly snags her fingers in his shirt.

When they draw apart, Twelve utters a breathy laugh and gently nudges up Lisa’s chin with the knuckle of one finger. ‘It’s my turn to hide.’

Feeling her cheeks warm, Lisa nods. She knows she has a giddy smile on her face and she doesn’t mind at all; she doesn’t know why, but in the company of the two young terrorists she feels like she has laughed and smiled more in the last few days than she has the whole of her life. She reminds herself every day that they are dangerous, that she doesn’t belong with them, but a part of her heart doesn’t want to believe that anymore and it’s in high danger of letting Twelve inside.

And Twelve knows it.

From the moment he’d picked her up on the street when she had run away from home she had been his new game. Nine is still his favourite but Lisa is  _new_  and so soft-spoken and sweet, she reacts so differently to things and it’s an utter delight to the boy who sees everything as an experiment. Her emotions are so easy to manipulate, her reactions so easy to predict; she isn’t complicated like his childhood friend but that in itself makes it enjoyable to continue to get closer to her.

As Lisa covers her face with her hands, beginning slowly to count down, Twelve slips out of the room and runs down the hall with a grin of delight as he considers where he might hide. On his way to the apartment he runs past Nine who looks startled, swinging around to watch him go.

‘What are you doing?’

Twelve glances back over his shoulder and the satisfied smile he gives Nine chills the taller boy to his very core.

‘Just playing games.’


	11. Trust

Twelve has been out for the day with a shopping list of electrical bits and pieces that Nine had given him and it’s honestly the longest time that Lisa has spent alone in the company of the latter.

Nine is silent as he types away at the computer, as lines of text that make no sense to Lisa flash across the screen. He doesn’t acknowledge her presence but then he hasn’t really done so since Twelve had brought her home and he had strongly voiced his disapproval of the situation. As it turned out he wasn’t entirely heartless, as he had allowed for her to be brought in after she had fainted on their front step.

Now she sits in a chair a few metres away from him, her hands clasped between her knees as she quietly observes him, careful to not disturb him in any way as it seems he’s firmly focused on his work, whatever it is. He’s been this way for hours but she’d only sat down in the last half an hour or so, after she had finished cleaning up the apartment.

Nine stops typing and she notices the muscles in his jaw clench for a moment as he seems to see something in the data that displeases him. His fingers curl into loose fists on the desk and he sighs before resuming what he’s doing. It’s the most emotional change Lisa has seen in him all day and she wonders if she should say something or ask a question.

She doesn’t.

Getting quietly up from her seat Lisa retreats to the kitchen and puts the kettle on, rifling around in their cupboards until she finds the tea she had bought the other day, and some honey. She’d noticed the boys drank almost nothing but coffee so she had added a few options and now she carefully made a steaming cup of tea with a spoonful of honey in it, steeping it and stirring in the sweetness before she brings it back out to the main room.

When she places it gently on the desk beside Nine’s keyboard his eyes dart from the screen to the cup and he stops typing as he follows the line of her arm up to look at her, a questioning look that carried only a hint of suspicion.

‘You looked like you could use something…’ Lisa smiles shyly, leaving the cup and taking a step back out of his personal space as she clasps her hands behind her back. ‘It’s... it’s my favourite, I thought you might appreciate it too. It always helps me think when I have to work on homework, and it’s good for warming your hands after you’ve been typing a long time, so…’

She trails off. His eyes are fixed on her, cold and unmoving and he doesn’t speak. She feels like his gaze is drilling right into her, stripping her of all her defences and leaving her vulnerable and exposed. If she’d had any secrets or bad intentions she knows she probably would have blurted them right out then and there, it’s such a chilling experience.

But Lisa has no bad intentions with these boys. As far as she’s concerned they saved her, despite what she knows Nine probably thinks of her. They saved her and they stand against the world that tortures her at every turn.

She only wants to help.

Nine looks back down at the steaming cup and reaches over to gingerly touch it, flinching initially at the heat of the cup before carefully putting his hands around it to warm them.

‘Thank you.’

It’s the only words he has spoken to her in the last couple of days, she’d almost forgotten what his voice sounded like. It’s a nice voice, deeper than Twelve’s—who never stops talking—and oddly soothing in a way. His gratitude seems genuine too and for a moment Lisa’s heart warms to hear it.

She uses it as an opportunity to try and strike up conversation. ‘So… what are you working on?’

The change is sudden and dramatic, even though Nine barely moves, but she sees the way the corners of his mouth tighten and his eyes grow cold again, undoing the work that the gesture with the tea had done on him.

He turns back to his computer, blocking her out coldly and Lisa hugs her arms to her chest, feeling it as if an icy gust had just gone through the room. Obviously he still doesn’t trust her, still doesn’t care to share any of the details with her and she bites her lip as she does her best not to show how disappointed she is. Twelve already seems to care about her, but she feels as if Nine has an impenetrable barrier around him that she can’t find any opening in, not unless he willingly lets her inside.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’

Nine doesn’t reply.

Lisa sighs softly and moves away from him, glancing back only once at him. ‘If you’d like another cup of tea when that one’s done, just say so and I’ll make it, okay?’

Retiring to the sofa she pulls her book of poetry from her bag to read in silence, and the time passes comfortably. The apartment is mostly a large shared space and occasionally when she looks up from her book she can see the back of him from her place on the couch, as he sits hunched over the keyboard.

 _He has bad posture_ , she thinks to herself. _He’ll have back pain later_.

She's not sure when the words on her page begin to blur and the tiredness from the chores she did in the morning sets in but the last thing she remembers is written imagery about wolves in winter snow.

Then she finds herself rising out of slumber, stirring on the couch and opening her eyes slowly.

The sun is a lot lower in the sky and it's dyeing the clouds a vibrant orange, a colour which spills into the room through the large windows. Lisa sees her book on the coffee table nearby, neatly closed although she doesn't remember putting it there, and when she sits up as she rubs at her eyes she realises a soft, dark blue blanket has been draped over her while she was napping.

'Hisami?' she calls out for the boy but there's no response, no sound but the constant tapping of Nine's fingers on his keyboard from across the room. 'Kokonoe... did Hisami come home?'

Nine pauses, the soft tic-tic-tic of keys falling silent for a moment. 'No.'

'Oh.'

She sits still on the couch for a moment, allowing herself to enjoy the sleepy, relaxed feeling and the beautiful light of the setting sun before the realisation hits her and she looks back over at him.

_Oh._

'...Thank you.' she says quietly with a smile as she pulls the blanket around herself, and Nine resumes his work in silence.


	12. Old Habits

Shibazaki knows the cigarettes aren’t good for him, he knows because of the rattle in his lungs whenever he coughs and the way that the smoke burns its way through his chest instead of being a soothing presence there the way it used to.

He smokes anyway.

The electric cigarette he had bought for himself in a half-hearted attempt to improve his lifestyle lays abandoned on the desk as he leans on the windowsill with his hand dangling outside, watching as the smoke curls up before it’s snatched by the afternoon breeze.

The archives are exceedingly quiet today, he is alone which is rare and generally enjoyable, but Shibazaki doesn’t enjoy the silence as much as he’d like because he always has his thoughts for company, twisting and turning in his mind and never far from blackening his mood.

He knows what the other officers in the building think of him, the younger detectives who weren’t around when he was working the front lines of investigation, but he doesn’t mind. He knows the saying ‘every dog has its day’ well and as far as he’s concerned he’s long since had his day. He taps the ash from his cigarette and exhales, the plume of smoke sucked out through the window as he looks out over the city.

 _It’s not so bad,_  he thinks with a wry smile.  _Many companies keep their archives in the basement. At least we have a view._

He doesn’t dislike his job. He’s satisfied where he is, considering the only other option for him was retirement and that would have left him without any kind of purpose. As far as he’s concerned being shunted to a desk job buried in a tiny back room is a step up from retirement at the very least, and an easy, relaxing way to keep tabs on the goings on in investigation even while not being directly involved at most.

So he tells himself every day.

In truth, Shibazaki has never quite forgotten or forgiven the day his transfer papers were slid across his desk accompanied by a gruff voice telling him his new role went into effect immediately, and could he please empty out his desk. He had thumbed through the pages to make sure all the details were correct and while a part of him refused to accept it for a moment, the small voice in the back of his mind whispered  _I told you so_  as he was made to clear out his things under the Chief’s watchful gaze.

The other members of the investigative team had not seemed surprised and barely any of them even made eye contact with him as he was led out.

He had been made an example of, of that he was certain, and there was nothing anyone could do. They couldn’t fire him because he had done nothing wrong, so they had done the next best thing in the hope that he might leave on his own.

Shibazaki had stayed.

His fellow investigators had treated him with kid gloves for the first couple of months before he had been all but forgotten amongst the stacks of paperwork. It was pretty humorous, he thought to himself, that you could dedicate entire decades of your life to doing your job to the absolute best of your ability and your reward would be to be shunted back to a dead-end position just for seeking the truth where people didn’t want you looking.

 _Was it worth it?_  His ex-partner had asked him over drinks the day after Shibazaki’s transfer.  _To lose your position over a single case? You must have known that with the people involved there was going to be consequences._

 _I can’t look the other way,_  Shibazaki had replied then and it was something he had never regretted.

He stubs the cigarette out on the windowsill and brushes the ashes outside before tossing the butt into the wastepaper basket by his desk. There’s a manila folder on his desk looking suspiciously new amongst all the old files and he picks it up to leaf through it, picking out select pages from it and skimming the text; new cases, nimbly taken from the desk of one of his old team members when they had been left unattended. Shibazaki knows he can’t get actively involved with cases anymore and no one has asked for his help since he fell from grace, but old habits—like the cigarettes—die hard.

There are just some things he can’t give up.


	13. Not One of Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A prompt fill. People wanted to know Twelve's reaction to being bullied/how his classmates see him.

'What a freak…'

'I know, right? What's his deal…'

The whispers are all around Hisami Toji, mostly from the boys while the girls giggle at the transfer student’s behaviour. He had come into his first class absolutely soaking wet and he had honestly not gotten any less odd from there.

People like him or people hate him, there doesn’t seem to be any in-between. The girls seem to think he’s cute in a kid brother sort of a way and it only adds fuel to the fire of the irritation that the guys of the class feel at his presence. If Hisami notices he gives no indication of it, laughing his way through lessons, raising his hand so high at questions that he’s practically lifting out of his seat.

A weirdo  _and_  a know-it-all… no, they aren’t going to have any of that.

They corner him at lunch on the rooftop, having seen him heading up there and following him as a group. There are four of them, all of them taller than the boy and all of them pissed.

The roof is a nice, wide open space and the thing about it is that from the ground it’s very difficult to see what’s going on up there, so they’re not worried when he turns to see them, his smile disappearing briefly in a small ‘o’ of surprise before they grab a hold of the front of his uniform.

'So how are you settling in, transfer student?' he keeps his voice friendly, a jarring contradiction to the way his fist clenches around a handful of Hisami's uniform. 'Used to the classrooms yet? You like your teachers?'

Hisami glances down at the grip wrinkling the front of his shirt and—by some miracle—his smile comes back to his face. It’s different, though, they all notice it in an instant. The smile doesn’t light up his eyes like it does when he makes a pun in class (and then laughs about it himself), or when he’s proud of answering a question correctly; it’s stretched too wide, almost like a grimace.

They’re a little spooked but not about to let this go, and while none of the others that they’ve bullied into submission have ever reacted in such a way, well… it isn’t a big deal is it? They’ve already established that the kid is loopy, they just want to make sure he knows they don’t appreciate it.

'Ohhhh.' he laughs, and they let him go because it's not a real laugh, there's something hollow about it and it's  _weird_ , man. ‘I see. I see! Hey, I was wondering if I was going to get picked on too. But I thought only quiet kids got picked on.’

He takes a swift step forward, closing the gap between him and the leader of the group and they impulsively take a step back as he leaps into their personal space. They’ve dealt with strange kids before but there’s something legitimately creepy about this one, the way his voice and his eyes don’t match his smile, the way his tone is melodic but for some reason sounds sinister.

One of them pushes Hisami, a hand planting firmly against the boy’s shoulder and knocking him off balance to send him staggering into one of the other antagonists, who reflexively grabs at him. In the next instant he yelps as Hisami pinches the delicate skin on the inside of his wrist and twists it sharply so that he immediately lets go to clutch at his sore arm, allowing the smaller boy to spin away from him.

 _He’s still laughing. He’s laughing, he’s having fun, what the fuck is_ wrong _with this kid?_

'I'm doing it wrong aren't I?' Hisami pouts petulantly as everyone gapes at him. 'I gotta take it, don't I? But I don't really want to, it seems… counter-productive.' he spreads his arms in a diplomatic gesture. 'I don't want any trouble. I'll stay away from you in the classroom, so why don't you just stay away from me everywhere else?'

They want to argue, they want to set upon him like a pack of rabid dogs and tear him to pieces especially _now_  but the way he says that, the look in his eyes and the unspoken threat and just something in the way he  _carries_  himself—so relaxed but there’s coiled tension in his muscles they can  _tell_ —it’s dangerous, he’s dangerous and it’s no longer a game they want to play.

'I guess that's cool…' they mumble as they take a few steps away from him. There's nothing hurt but their dignity and one wrist and that's fine, they'll leave it at that.

As they scurry back to the staircase to leave the rooftop they nearly run into another stranger, dark-haired and tall this time but they only curse and bypass him in their hurry to get out of there and he only gives them a fleeting glance on his way up.


	14. Mechanical Freedom

Twelve wipes a hand across his forehead, leaving a streak of oil behind. He’s been tinkering with the motorbike for close to two hours already and his arms ache a little but the satisfaction he feels at the work is more than enough to make up for it.

He loves putting things together nearly as much as he enjoys taking things apart; to Twelve it’s absolutely fascinating how so many tiny bits and pieces join to make something big and beautiful and he’s endlessly curious. He always wants to know how things work and the motorbike is almost a big puzzle to him.

The bike had been a gift from Nine—in a  _sense_ , it wasn’t like Nine’s money wasn’t Twelve’s money too—after Twelve had nagged him ceaselessly for it. They had bought and discarded several vehicles during the last few years; the one Twelve missed most was the snowmobile that they had used during the raid on the nuclear plant in Aomori. He’d loved that thing, it had been an absolute delight to learn how to use it and he still secretly wished they could have used it more instead of discarding it.

Nine had argued in the beginning; he didn’t want to own a vehicle permanently, he had said they involved too much paperwork requiring identification and the registration was just going to be too damn hard to slip around. Twelve had rebutted by saying that they needed a potential getaway vehicle and the little scooter sitting in their garage was proof that Nine was perfectly capable of procuring a vehicle without jumping through all the legal hoops so what was the  _problem_ really.

Nine had replied through gritted teeth that the scooter was a piece of junk that could barely hit 40 kilometres per hour and there was not going to be any way that was going to draw attention but he didn’t trust that Twelve would be able to control himself on a vehicle with that much horsepower and he didn’t need those sorts of tracks to cover, that he had enough on his plate as it was.

Twelve had pouted.

Pouting did not work on Nine, however. Nor had sulking about it for three days done very much good. It was only when the two of them had reviewed their future plans that it became clear that Twelve was probably right; they needed a faster method of transportation.

Twelve had tried not to be too smug about it.

So he had gotten his way and when Nine had taken him into the garage to point out the shiny new motorbike, Twelve had been absolutely thrilled. He knew it wasn’t a toy, that they needed it for their plans, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t happy to have a beast of a machine to work and play with.

The very first thing he had done was studied up on the model of motorbike and had immediately started tinkering with it, swapping out parts and learning about how everything worked. They obtained several different number plates for it which they frequently swapped around so that if something did happen where they’d gain the attention of the police the plates wouldn’t bring up any useful information.

‘Want to go for a ride?’ Twelve looks up from his work at Nine, his face and hands grimy, bright smile in place.

Nine politely declines without even looking up from his computer. ‘You drive like a maniac, I would rather stay in one piece.’ To this day he’s still a little traumatised by their escape from the nuclear plant; for all intents and purposes it had gone as smoothly as he’d planned but he hadn’t exactly enjoyed the way his stomach lurched every time the snowmobile jarred against the ground and he’d clung onto Twelve’s waist for dear life. ‘Besides, I have too much to do.’

‘Mmm, spoilsport. Suit yourself.’ Grabbing a nearby rag and wiping his hands clean, Twelve closely examines the bike to make sure everything’s in place. He double-checks all the changes he’s made and then grabs his helmet. ‘Last chance!’

‘No, thank you.’

Huffing softly at Nine’s response, Twelve hits the button to raise the garage door, pulling his helmet on as it whirs upward. He wouldn’t have minded shaking Nine up a little; he knows the other boy’s not as fond of high speeds as Twelve himself and Nine always looks a little unsteady when he disembarks. Still, Twelve doesn’t need him to have fun.

The bike roars to life and out of the corner of his eye Twelve sees his companion’s head turn to shoot him a disapproving look. He knows that Nine regrets allowing him to have the motorbike every time that Twelve guns the engine like that.

Grinning inside his helmet he forms an O with his index finger and thumb, giving Nine the ‘okay’ sign before he kicks back the stand and pulls out of the garage onto the street.

And one of the reasons he likes the bike so much, aside from the fact it’s a fascinating piece of engineering, is that when he feels the wind whip along his clothes, the scenery flashing by, Twelve feels free.


	15. Domesticity (and brownies)

‘Are you  _sure_  we need that much butter?’ Twelve looks dubiously at the big yellow lump in the mixing bowl as Lisa frantically scrolls through the recipe on her phone.

‘Um… w-wait.’

‘Because that looks like a lot.’

‘ _Wait_ , it’s been years since I made these and I had help, I don’t really remember.’ Lisa brings the phone close to her nose to read the small text. ‘Yes, it says we really need this much.’

‘Really? I think these things might actually kill us.’

‘No just wait and see, they’re going to be  _so good_.’ Enlarging the text on her phone so she can put it down and still be able to read it, she takes a knife and begins to cut up the block of dark chocolate on the chopping board into rough chunks, throwing them in with the butter.

‘And you  _definitely_  know what you’re doing? Because every experiment of yours you’ve tried since you came and joined us has ended in flames.’ Twelve leans in close to look into the bowl again and watch what she’s doing. She used to shy away when he got into her personal space like that but after living with the boys for a little while she had learned that it was something she may as well just get used to, considering how often Twelve did it.

Her cheeks flush red. ‘I-I know. I’m getting better.’

Twelve laughs, but it isn’t unkind. ‘Are you?’

Lisa pouts and chooses to ignore him, putting all her focus into the task at hand. She’s so determined to finally get this  _right_ , she’s going to follow the recipe to the letter. She knows if Nine had his way she would be out on the street, it’s only because Twelve seems to be entertained by her company that she’s still around. She wants to prove that she isn’t  _completely_  useless, and while Twelve has sat her down a few times to explain a few engineering basics she is also determined to get something right in the kitchen.

‘Can you get the eggs for me, please?’

Obediently, Twelve fetches eggs from the cupboard and sets them down on the bench, still watching what she’s doing with the sort of troubled look that says he wants to intervene but doesn’t know how to without wounding her pride.

When Lisa had declared that morning that she wanted to revisit the more positive memories of her childhood by baking brownies the way she once had with her father, Twelve had been taken aback but definitely not against the idea. At worst he would get to watch Lisa floundering around helplessly in the kitchen while doing her best not to panic, at best there would be delicious baked goods.

Both ideas appealed to the boy.

Of course when he sees that Lisa seems to have settled comfortably into the task, Twelve can’t help but interfere; he loves a little chaos and since Lisa has come to stay with them he’s been having a fair share of fun at her expense. She startles easily and she’s so eager to please that he teases her probably a little more than he should, but the more she reacts the more he can’t help himself.

She floats the metal mixing bowl in the boiling water on the stove, watching as the bowl begins to heat up until the chocolate begins to melt and run in with the butter. Twelve also watches it for a moment before he impulsively leans over again and dips his finger in the melting chocolate, popping it into his mouth.

'Hey!' Lisa yelps, looking startled and smacking at his hand on reflex, even as he laughs and skips back out of her reach. 'That's…! That's unsanitary!'

'So is this.' he moves before she has time to stop him, jabbing his finger into the mixture again before smearing it along the end of her nose. She squeals in response and rubs at the chocolate on her face.

'Hisa—Twelve!' she has the sense to shut off the stove; the water in the pan is hot enough to melt the mixture and if she's realising quickly that this isn't going to go as smoothly as she'd hoped, so the last thing she needs is scalding water splashing everywhere. Setting the bowl aside so the chocolate mixture can cool, she decides not to give him the pleasure of her retaliation, instead nudging him aside so she can get to the eggs and vanilla extract. 'If you're not going to help, you shouldn't be in the kitchen.'

Twelve pouts slightly, disappointed that she isn’t playing along. He stays quiet for a moment, watching as she mixes in eggs and a teaspoon of vanilla, and he manages to restrain himself just long enough for her to sift in the flour and begin to sift in the cocoa powder as well before he can’t help himself any longer.

He reaches over and flicks a finger in under the small sieve she’s using with enough force to knock it firmly upward.

Cocoa powder explodes into the air in a brown cloud as Lisa squeals again, but this time she doesn’t just scold him, she turns and gives him a firm shove, leaving two clear, flour-white hand-prints against his chest while cocoa powder spills everywhere. Knocked off balance even as he’s laughing, Twelve’s arm flings out to try and catch himself on the kitchen bench but instead he manages to sweep the egg carton off it and when he topples to the ground the carton upends its contents onto his head with a resounding  _crack_.

Time stops for a moment as Lisa and Twelve stare at one another in stunned silence. Lisa’s face is grimy with chocolate and cocoa powder and Twelve feels egg yolk running down through his hair and along his cheek.

For once it’s Lisa who laughs first, sputtering at the ridiculous picture in front of her. As she looks around and realises what a mess they’ve made it somehow becomes even funnier, until she’s doubling over with her arms over her stomach and Twelve’s laughter is mingling with hers.

In a moment another pair of arms encircle her waist; Twelve’s up off the floor and he pulls her close, leaning in with his face close to hers as he leers comically. ‘You’ve got flour and cocoa, how about some egg?’

Shrieking and pushing at him even as her laughter makes her breathless and weak at the knees, Lisa reaches blindly out to the counter again, finds the flour and takes a handful of it before firmly smacking it against Twelve’s head. The air is suddenly a white cloud and they cough as they become a giggling mess in one another’s arms.

Neither of them hear the door to the apartment open and close.

When Nine walks in he stops dead and stares at the scene in the kitchen. Lisa and Twelve stand frozen, covered in egg and flower, staring back at him with surprised and guilty faces. Lisa’s smile is the first to fade and she suddenly looks especially mortified.

Very slowly his gaze drags over the rest of the kitchen, over the broken eggs on the floor and the mess that is the mixing bowl on the counter. Twelve notices that even while Nine’s face looks relatively calm, there’s a slight flare to his nostrils and the cords in his neck stand out as the muscles in his jaw tighten.  _Whoops_.

‘Heyyy, Nine.’ Letting go of Lisa, Twelve wipes his hands off on his shirt which does absolutely nothing because it’s as filthy as the rest of him. His voice and body language remains relaxed as if their kitchen doesn’t look like an entire bakery just exploded across it. ‘How was your morning?’

‘What,’ the other responds in a slow, measured tone, ‘is going on here?’

‘We’re making brownies.’ Lisa responds meekly, stepping close beside Twelve and snagging his shirt between her thumb and forefinger as if seeking security in the boy’s close proximity under Nine’s hawklike stare.

‘Brownies.’ Nine repeats flatly.

‘We were just about to put them in the oven, weren’t we, Lisa? ‘ Twelve grins broadly as he reaches back to take Lisa’s hand, giving it a warm squeeze. He’s seen Nine angrier than this, he’s not worried. ‘They’re going to be great.’

Nine looks like he wants to say something but instead he takes a slow, deep breath and closes his eyes. Twelve imagines he’s probably counting down to ease his annoyance, and when Nine finally opens his eyes again he seems to relax slightly.

‘I want you guys to finish what you started and then clean this—‘ he waves a hand around at the mess, ‘—up before those brownies are done baking. Actually, you know what?’ he rolls up his sleeve, sighing. ‘I’m going to help because I don’t trust that this mess will be gone any time soon if I leave it up to the two of you.’

Twelve beams and while Lisa looks a little worried she can feel some of the tension has left the kitchen. Quietly, though Twelve and Lisa have to stifle their giggles as they work, they pour the batter out into the baking tray and set it into the oven.

As they set to work together with Nine to clean up the mess the smell of baking fills the apartment with its enticing sweetness and together with Twelve’s constant chatter as he explains to Nine how things turned out the way they did, Lisa begins to feel at ease.

She giggles as Twelve dramatically staggers back to demonstrate how he knocked the eggs off the counter and she’s surprised at how good it feels to laugh. Lisa knows there are a lot of very worrying things on the horizon for the three of them, but for the moment she can pretend that everything is exactly as it should be.


	16. Peace

Twelve wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that something is wrong. Sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes, he looks blearily around but the room is pitch black. Creeping out of bed, he crawls over to the side of the loft where Nine usually sleeps, but when he pats his hands lightly over the other boy’s bed he finds it empty.

Creeping quietly back over to the edge of the loft, he peers over and sees the electronic glow down on the main floor; a laptop, but there is no sound or movement from the person using it. He knows that Nine was still working when Twelve had gone to bed, the latter had teased him about it and had said not to stay up too late.

If Nine was still working at this hour, Twelve was going to scold him.

Lisa normally sleeps on the sofa down on the lower floor, but because Nine had been working there Twelve had set her up on a makeshift bed upstairs. He wasn’t sure how she would have felt sharing such close quarters with him but she hadn’t seemed to mind and had dropped off to sleep almost immediately.

Now he sneaks past her in the darkness and climbs down the loft stairs, carefully avoiding the creaky places he knows of so that he won’t disturb anyone.

But Nine isn’t working. The boy lays slumped over on the couch, the laptop somehow miraculously still on his lap but otherwise abandoned. In the glow of the computer’s screen Twelve can see that the other’s glasses are slightly askew and his mouth hangs slightly open as he dozes and the boy can’t help but smile because it’s just so  _rare_  to see him like this… unguarded and, best of all, relaxed.

Carefully he takes the computer from Nine’s lap before it can slide off and clatter onto the floor, and he sets it on the coffee table out of harm’s way. He wants to shake the boy awake with an ‘I told you so’ about how he works too hard, but he just can’t bring himself to do it because Nine sleeps little enough as it is and it would be such a shame to ruin the moment.

Twelve moves away to the closet in the hall and pulls out one of the spare blankets they keep for winter, shaking it out and carrying it back to the sofa. He sits down beside the other and reaches out to touch his hand—ice cold, as usual. He knows it doesn’t bother Nine that he’s always cold, but Twelve can’t help wondering about it.

He draws the blanket up over his friend and tucks in the sides as best he can. He knows Nine’s position is awkward and the other is going to be stiff as a board in the morning but he doesn’t want to risk moving him in case he wakes up.

'You need me.' Twelve murmurs fondly as he reaches over to carefully remove Nine's glasses, folding them and setting them on the table beside the laptop. 'You pretend to be all tough but I know you wouldn't be able to hold it together without me by your side.'

Nine doesn’t hear him, not even stirring in his sleep. Twelve smiles and drapes himself over the other on top of the blanket, his arms around his sleeping companion and at that Nine does stir a little at the unexpected weight but settles again just as quickly with a long, drawn-out sigh.

'And I need you.' Twelve continues in barely more than a whisper, his voice muffled against the blanket as he presses his face against the other's shoulder. 'I'll never say it when you can hear, not once in a million years because you're the kind of person who would never believe me. But I do. You're the only one who understands me. Everyone else only thinks that they do.'

He breathes in, filling his nose with Nine’s scent, the smell of the soap the other uses and for a moment he’s filled with a melancholy that he doesn’t understand. It clutches at his heart and Twelve’s smile is smothered by it for just a moment.

He knows they’re on a downward spiral to destruction. He knows that and he’s accepted it. But in a moment like this when everything is so quiet and so perfect, he wonders if they’ve chosen the right path.

Twelve’s eyes droop closed even as his hand dips in under the blanket to find Nine’s icy one, hooking his pinkie finger in with that of the other’s. When he’s found that small gesture of security he allows himself to drift off back to sleep again.

This is how Lisa finds them the next morning, when she wakes to find the loft empty and comes down to see where everyone else is. She stops in front of the sofa, seeing the way the two boys are curled up together, looking peaceful in a way she doesn’t think she’s ever seen either of them before.

She feels a little jealous of the intimacy, of the way their hands are linked and the way they are obviously so comfortable in one another’s presence. She’s never had anyone she’s been so close with, has never known anyone as long as Nine and Twelve seem to have known each other. But the jealousy is only mild and easily dwarfed by the joy she feels at seeing them that way.

Clutching her hands to her chest for a moment, Lisa smiles before she moves away and fetches another blanket to put over Twelve who seems to be keeping Nine warm with his body alone.

'I hope one day you'll let me be so close.' she whispers softly, trying to keep the longing from her voice. She knows it's dangerous to dream of that sort of companionship when their situation is such a dangerous one, but she can't help herself.

She leaves them to their dreams and goes into the kitchen to prepare coffee. Knowing the lives that the boys live, it’s likely going to be another long day.


	17. Regrets & Explosions

When he sees the passenger asleep in the otherwise empty carriage, all of Nine’s thought processes slam to a halt.

His plan which had been proceeding so smoothly—scare off the passengers with the smoke grenade, get in the carriage, rip out the bomb’s fuse before it detonates—comes crumbling down around him when he sees the woman there unaware of the chaos around her.

Nine is a logical thinker but in that split second his mind is a blank as he acts on pure impulse. He changes direction in mid-stride and lunges towards her; he has no plan, he doesn’t know whether he intends to shield her with his own body, to wake her, to push her as far away as possible—

—the bomb detonates.

Nine feels the impact against his back.  _It isn’t hot_ , he thinks mildly to himself as it knocks him off his feet, and for a moment it feels like he’s weightless as time seems to stand still. It only takes seconds but it feels like an eternity as he’s certain that this is it, this is the end.

He doesn’t see his life flash before his eyes and is a little grateful for it—there’s not a lot there to be nostalgic of—but he does think of Twelve, of the only companion that he has besides the burning need for revenge he carries in his heart, and his hand reaches out as if to blindly seek out that of his friend before everything abruptly goes dark.

* * *

Twelve feels like his heart has stopped when the comforting crackle of the radio abruptly ceases. He stops running and stands in the middle of the sidewalk, staring blankly at the radio in one hand, his non-functioning phone in the other. Someone bumps into him and mutters a curse but he barely hears it.

The time… the time is right on when the bomb was set to go off. Why had the radio cut off like that? If Nine had gotten into the train on time to dismantle the bomb, if there had been no explosion, then why doesn’t he say anything? With the way they had built the device he can imagine the blast radius pretty easily. And the last he’d heard of Nine had been so close, too close.

'Nine?' his voice is shaking. Nerves, he thinks. Nine will be fine. Nine is always fine. 'Are you there?'

There’s not even any static on the other end. Twelve steps aside and sits heavily down on the curb, thumbing the radio button again as he calls his companion’s name plaintively. Nine has always been the scaredy-cat out of the two of them, always prone to running, ever since they were children. Why would he do something so dangerous, so foolish? How could he not have known he wouldn’t have had enough time?

Twelve’s blood runs cold as the thought hits him that Nine might not be fine after all. His knuckles are white as he clings to the radio as firmly as he’s clinging to hope.

* * *

The first thing Nine becomes aware of as he slowly emerges into consciousness is the throbbing pain in his back. What wasn’t hot before is suddenly a searing agony, and as Nine becomes more aware of his surroundings he finds himself propped in the corner of the carriage, smoke choking his lungs and his whole body aching.

His throat burns and he coughs dryly, trying to blink away the way his vision swims before him. He realises his glasses are gone, lost somewhere in the rubble, and he doesn’t bother to look for them. The woman he had intended to rescue lays nearby and for a heart-stopping moment he thinks that he was too late, that his attempt had been useless… when she stirs slightly it feels like a weight has been lifted from Nine’s shoulders and he exhales in a sigh of relief that hurts him just as much as every other movement.

Seconds stretch into minutes. It feels like an eternity. He hears the voices of people outside the train panicking, screaming, crying.

_We did this._

The thought strikes him hollowly in the chest and he wheezes in pain as he tries to pull himself up off the ground. The sharp pain that lances through him when he bends to try and help the injured woman to her feet makes him wonder if he’s cracked a rib; everything is infinitely more difficult than it should be and Nine can barely catch a decent breath, let alone move another human being to safety.

_We did this. This us us._

The despair wells up like a physical thing, crawling up along the inside of his throat until he feels like he’s going to vomit it out in a vile black stream. It feels like it’ll choke him. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go… no one was supposed to get hurt. They were to send a strong message but  _no one should have been in harms’ way_.

But another small part of him protests.  _No, this wasn’t us. We set it up so no one would get hurt. Our pieces were played exactly as they should have been. It was the other side that didn’t play fair._

His breath rattles out of his chest and he decides simply to ignore the pain and discomfort until he’s out of harms way. The woman is weak but compliant, she lets him wrap his arm around her and she leans her weight against him as he helps her out of the burning train carriage.

He remembers Twelve as they stagger out and he manages to draw enough breath to speak into the radio, though it takes a few shakes for the device to come back to life and the moment it crackles he hears his companion on the other end.

'Nine! You're unhurt?' Twelve sounds odd. Different. Nine notices a desperation in his tone that's normally not present. For a moment, Twelve sounds honestly, genuinely scared.

Nine takes inventory of his various injuries and decides it’s easier to lie and deal with the other boy’s worries later. ‘Yeah.’

'Are you okay? Are you alive?'

Nine would laugh at the absurdity of the question if his whole body doesn’t ache, if he doesn’t have the destruction and pain all around him making sure he doesn’t forget the severity of the situation. Instead, he only answers tiredly. ‘Of course.’ but for some reason the fact that Twelve even asks, the fact that he can hear the way that the other’s voice has changed just slightly in pitch with his fear for his companion’s life puts Nine at ease.

Nearby, a phone begins to ring with a message tone. Then another, then another. Nine’s own phone buzzes in his hand and he lifts it to read the message on the screen.

_I found you ^ ^_

'Nine, is this…?'

'Yeah, there's no mistaking it.'

His despair and guilt is replaced my something else, a fury that claws it’s way through his blood and sets his nerves aflame. At his side he clenches his hand into a fist, the tension helping him to ignore the pain in his body for a moment. Nine has always found pride in being able to keep his composure, to hide his emotions from everyone but Twelve who knows him long and well enough to be able to see through any stoicism. But at that moment, Nine embraces the anger, the murderous need to find their antagonist and get revenge for what she has done.

'It's Five.'

For once, he is determined to win their game.


End file.
